Truly Nolen Canada’s Solution for Carpenter Ants

Many homes in Canada are built to showcase the natural beauty of wood through wooden porches, decking, and wooden siding. However, great beauty on the outside may not always lead to great beauty on the inside. Wooden homes can easily become susceptible to a carpenter ant infestation. Carpenter ants are known for making their nests in wood structures. Over time, these nests can cause extensive damage to your home’s structural integrity before being noticed and can be very expensive to fix. So it’s important to be vigilant. Carpenter ants are considered one of the most serious structural pest species in Canada. Check out our Homeowner’s Handbook: Ants of Canada.

Inspect and Identify

Carpenter ants are active throughout the year in Canada and can be found both indoors and outdoors. Although these ants don’t actually eat wood they remove during their nest-building activities like termites do, their damage can be just as significant. Though they seldom bite humans, carpenter ants have powerful jaws that are used to chew their way through wood, creating an expansive network of smooth tunnels and passages. Visible signs of a carpenter ant infestation are small amounts of what appears to be sawdust on the floor. This is actually the chewed up wood that the carpenter ants have pushed out of the way to make room as they tunnel through your home’s wooden structure.

Truly Nolen Canada’s approach to carpenter ant control begins with a thorough inspection of both the interior and exterior areas of your home to accurately identify areas of infestation, favorable conditions causing their infestation, and assess damage. Carpenter ants can be of particular concern during the Canadian spring when they travel en masse to find new nesting locations. They can easily overwinter inside your home if their nest is given ample time to mature and secure a weatherproof area to protect themselves.

Carpenter ants need a constant water source to survive and typically nest in areas where wood is damp and easier for them to mine. Partially decayed wood and other moist areas offer ideal locations for carpenter ants to build their nests. They prefer humid environments and will often choose a damp basement, the bathroom, the kitchen, or other rooms that have water leaks from plumbing or leaks around doors and windows.

There may be multiple carpenter ant colonies located in different areas of your home. It is possible for some to be outside and some to be inside. In order to maintain a full level of control, a complete extermination of all nests is necessary.

Determine a Course of Action

Since carpenter ants do their damage behind the scenes, it is important for Canadian homeowners to be aware of their potentially destructive habits. Your Truly Nolen Canada professional will determine the right course of treatment for you and provide you with a customized treatment plan that will ensure that you are effectively protected from this wood-destroying insect. Truly Nolen Canada’s treatment plans work to prevent these insects from entering the home by treating the interior, exterior, and foundation.

Advancements in pest control technology have led to better bait products as well as undetectable liquid products. These newer and more efficient treatments allow carpenter ants to introduce these insecticides to other colony members by normal contact and food exchange, thus controlling the entire population. Truly Nolen Canada incorporates these advancements in carpenter ant control into our Four Seasons Pest Program controlling multiple pest issues with no extra add-on fees.

Your Truly Nolen Canada pest control professional will provide direct treatment to the nesting sites. Correct application by a trained professional is essential. If too little or too much treatment is applied or if the treatment is not applied directly on the nest, the carpenter ants can readily adapt and move their nest to another location. This will only spread the population and worsen the infestation and the treatment process will have to start all over again. Truly Nolen Canada can help you do it right the first time and eliminate these pests from your home.

Control and Prevent

They can be exceptionally difficult to control and may requiring multiple treatment techniques and services. To ensure a successful treatment, it is always best to seek professional pest control. Carpenter ants can make multiple nests that may be very difficult for the untrained eye to detect. Truly Nolen Canada will find and treat all of the nests to ensure that they do not return.

Prevention:

In the spring, remove any wood and decaying vegetation from the foundation of your property. Remove tree stumps and dead limbs.

Trim tree branches and other plants back from the building to eliminate ant “bridges” which can provide foraging access into your home.

Fill any gaps, cracks, or little openings on the outside of your home and make sure rain gutters are directed away from the home.

If you need help eliminating an infestation, Truly Nolen Canada can help. Our Four Seasons Pest Control program will help prevent carpenter ant infestations in and around your home throughout the year. Call today to schedule your inspection and learn how we can keep your home carpenter ant free!